“What the . . .?” He pauses when he sees what I’m doing. “You’re going to hurt your feet.”
“They already ache. Besides, I can’t keep up with your longer stride in these.” Understandably, he’s rushing our walk to get me home and return to his friends. However, I’m not about to race him in my high heels.
Holding the ankle straps looped in my fingers, he surprises me by tugging them free from my fingertips and dangling them from his. It’s quite a sight. Tall man in leather holding delicate, heeled sandals. He’s no Prince Charming, and I’m not Cinderella. I own these shoes. I earned them on my own.
We continue in silence a few more paces when he opens his mouth and quickly shuts it. We’ve slowed quite a bit even with the removal of my shoes. I consider it might be nice to loop my arm in his, might be romantic to stroll these dark quiet streets in this quaint sleepy town, but this isn’t a date. There’s nothing romantic about this man.
“Katie is . . . special,” he interjects on my thoughts. “Not just because she’s my daughter, but because she doesn’t speak. I’m protective of her because of that.”
“That makes sense. You’re her father.”
Looking over at me, he scowls when our eyes meet and then he continues speaking. “I’m not telling you about her for your sympathy. We don’t need pity.”
My mouth pops open but he pierces me with a silencing gaze.
“She seems to have taken an immediate liking to you, and she won’t voice to me why. But she isn’t going to talk to you either, no matter how hard you try.” There’s a warning in his words.
Don’t get involved.
“I’m sensing you don’t like me very much.” I state the obvious.
“It isn’t you.”
I laugh bitterly. “It isn’t me, it’s you, right?” How many times have I heard that?
“We had fun, Em. It isn’t you, it’s me.” And then the next girl would be the right girl. She’d be the one.
“Not exactly,” he replies but offers nothing else.
We soon arrive at Nana’s because of her proximity to town.
“So, I guess this is me,” I tease, reaching out for my shoes, but he doesn’t relinquish them. He steps closer to me and our fingers brush. I’ve decided to just let the current flow. It’s all one-sided anyway.
Turning his head toward Nana’s home, he mutters, “Lots of work to do on this place.” Now, he’s stating the obvious. “Can’t get it all done in a weekend.”
How did he know I was only here until tomorrow? I’ve been thinking I might need to take an emergency vacation. I can’t leave this place like it is, or Nana like she is. I need to talk to my sister before I can make a decision, though.
“Might have to change my plans and stay a week. But only one week, and then I’m outta here.” I give him my best gangster voice, but he doesn’t crack a smile. He’s so . . . hard-edged, and he still hasn’t answered my question. What is it he doesn’t like about me?
“One week, you say?” His voice drifts as his attention remains on Nana’s sagging front porch.
“I’m efficient,” I state, defending myself, though the job before me is rather daunting.
“Guess I might see you around then.” He turns toward me, modifying his statement from earlier in the evening where he clearly said he wouldn’t see me, as if he hoped he wouldn’t ever see me again.
Well, too bad for him. “Yep. See you.”
My voice drifts as I realize how close we stand to one another, staring into each other’s eyes. My chest almost presses against his jacket. My fingers twitch to reach out for him. The soft noises of the night suddenly sound like a symphony. The darkness feels like a tender blanket and my skin prickles under the weight of it.
Will he kiss me?
I take a giant step back with the thought. What a ridiculous idea.
We aren’t on some date, I remind myself. Jess’s brows pinch as I move away from him and he imitates the chin tip I gave him earlier. Without a word, he spins on his booted heels and heads down Nana’s block, only I notice he doesn’t turn left in the direction of town and the bar.
I also realize too late he’s walked off with my favorite silver sandals.
+ + +
“He is the most miserable man,” I tell my sister Grace when I finally call her that night. “He’s surly and brooding and just . . . gah.”
“Sounds perfect,” Grace says, her voice dreamy. My sister has the fairy-tale life—went to college and fell in love with the first man she met. His plan was the military while she wanted to be a lawyer, but she ended her education with a dual degree in PoliSci and history along with a diamond ring on her finger. Immediately, she had a baby, then another one, one more, and score number four. Now, baby five is on the way and her husband Mark jokes that his basketball team will be complete. Five boys.
I’m not jealous. I’m not.
I always thought I’d have kids. Someday. It wasn’t something I spoke of often, especially considering it isn’t necessarily date conversation. Still, I’d been holding out for a happily ever after with the hope one day a baby would come.
For another moment, I consider Jess. He’s a single father, something else my sister found intriguing.
“That means he’s lonely for adult company and looking for companionship.”
What is she, a fortune teller?
“I don’t want to talk about him,” I say, although I’ve already been speaking about him for the past ten minutes. His broody edge. His jaw tick. That stupid bandana.
Definitely not a prince charming.
At thirty-four, I’m thinking less and less of fairy tales coming true for me anyway. My happily ever after rests in my career.
Does it really, Emily?
I’ve been passed over for story after story in the last decade. I mean, I’ve been writing articles—but not the ones I want. The special interest ones. The personal tales. The romantic sort. Instead, I write newsworthy information on the trivial. Union strikes. Local fundraisers. City crime.
Not that these things aren’t important on some level, but it isn’t what I thought I’d be covering some ten years after I started. I work for City’s Edge, a newspaper dedicated to the suburban side of the third-largest city in the United States. My boss was a mentor of sorts when I began, but as the years have rolled on I’ve begun to question his ethics. He always passes me up for another writer.
Let’s let the better man take this one. Not better journalist, better man.
“Anyway, let’s talk Nana,” I say, no longer interested in discussing Jess with my sister. She doesn’t need to know how attractive he is or attracted I am to him. “I think I need to stay the week.”
I don’t need to see my sister to know her eyebrows just hit her hairline.
“How will that work with your job?” There might be a touch of sarcasm in her voice. My sister knows my goals and believes I might take them a bit to the extreme.
“I haven’t taken time off in a year.” I still have all twenty days of vacation allotted to me. “Grace, I can’t even describe this place. I’ve entered a time capsule which has collected dust like it’s been buried.”